Simon read music at King’s College, Cambridge. He is a professor of piano accompaniment and a vocal repertoire coach at the Royal College of Music, London where he also co-ordinates the piano accompaniment course. He is an official accompanist for the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition.

Performance highlights have included an invitation from the Wigmore Hall, London to present a three concert project on the songs of Joseph Marx; a recital tour with Stéphane Degout which included the Ravinia and Edinburgh festivals; his debut at Carnegie Hall, New York with mezzo Karen Cargill and at the Frick Collection with Christopher Purves; performances of the Schubert song cycles with Mark Padmore including at the Schubertiade, Hohenhems and recitals with Angelika Kirchschlager at La Monnaie, Brussels and at the Wigmore Hall where appearances have included recitals with Christopher Maltman, Elizabeth Watts, Stephan Loges, Sophie Bevan, Sally Matthews and Lawrence Zazzo.

Vocal recordings include Warlock Songs with Andrew Kennedy, two volumes of Debussy Songs and a Strauss disc with Gillian Keith (Champs Hill Records, CHRCD018) and a disc of Mahler songs with Karen Cargill, as well as a song recital disc with Dame Felicity Palmer, and the complete songs of Jonathan Dove with Kitty Whately (Nights Not Spent Alone, also on Champs Hill Records, CHRCD125).

Kitty Whately is one of the UK’s most characterful mezzo sopranos of the operatic stage and concert platform, and a highly acclaimed interpreter particularly of contemporary opera and art song. She has performed leading roles in world and UK premieres of opera by Mark Anthony Turnage, Missy Mazzoli, Mark Adamo and Vasco Mandonça, alongside song cycles written especially for her by Jonathan Dove, Sally Beamish, Steven Hough, Juliana Hall and Tarik O’Regan. She has received critical acclaim for performances of opera by Benjamin Britten and Bernard Hermann, as well as a huge variety of roles from the core canon of classical opera.
As a past winner of the Kathleen Ferrier award, and former BBC New Generation Artist, Kitty is in high demand as a recitalist and concert artist. She has sung with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, and her frequent performances with the BBC orchestras include De Falla’s The Three Cornered Hat (BBC National Orchestra of Wales), her BBC Proms debut in Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ Suite from Act II of Caroline Mathilde, as well as recordings of Ravel’s Sheherazade with BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Canteloube’s Songs of the Auvergne with John Wilson and BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and songs by Rodgers & Hammerstein, Jerome Kern and Cole Porter with BBC Concert Orchestra. Recent concert performances have included Mahler Das Lied von der Erde at the Mizmorim Festival in Basel, The Dream of Gerontius with Crouch End Festival Chorus at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Mahler’s 2nd Symphony with the orchestra of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and Mahler’s 8th Symphony with the Symphony Orchestra of Chetham’s School of Music. Kitty regularly performs recital programmes in all the major chamber venues in the UK, partnering most often with Simon Lepper, Joseph Middleton, and Anna Tilbrook, among many others. Kitty makes regular appearances on BBC Radio 3, in concert and in recordings made for Radio 3’s Composer of The Week series. She features on several discs of song, including three solo albums, as well as collaborations with other singers including Roderick Williams, Mary Bevan and Gareth Brynmor John. Kitty is the co-founder of the charity SWAP’ra (Supporting Women And Parents in Opera).